The Great Gatsby
Chapter Two
Chapter Summary
 Introduced to a third setting – The Valley of Ashes. This shows a
darker side to the American Dream and demonstrate what
happens if you work hard but don’t achieve what you want.
 Meet George and Myrtle Wilson, the only impoverished
characters in the novel and they live in the Valley of Ashes.
 Find out that Tom and Myrtle are having an affair and Myrtle has
aspirations to leave the ash pit. She sees Tom as her ticket out
and does not accept that there is no chance of a permanent
relationship between the two.
 Shown the contrasts between Daisy and Myrtle.
 Move to another setting – Manhattan, New York. Tom, Nick,
Myrtle and other people through a small party and we see a
darker side to Tom’s character as he punches Myrtle when she
insults Daisy.
 The theme of artifice and reality is explored in this chapter.
Setting
 We are quickly introduced to a further setting in chapter two
called the Valley of the Ashes. Lying halfway between the eggs
and New York itself, the Valley of Ashes symbolises the ‘edge’ of
society.
The Valley of Ashes
The Valley of Ashes between West Egg and New York City consists of a
long stretch of desolate land created by the dumping of industrial
ashes. Represents a kind of purgatory – a place in limbo but also
symbolises the shameful underbelly of American capitalism. These men
are devoid of colour, working ceaselessly to maintain the status quo of
the Tom Buchanans who don’t seem to work at all. It represents the
moral and social decay that results from the uninhibited pursuit of
wealth, as the rich indulge themselves with regard for nothing but their
own pleasure. The Valley of Ashes also symbolizes the plight of the poor,
like George Wilson, who live among the dirty ashes and lose their
vitality as a result.
The Valley of Ashes
Ash: has a traditionally negative association with decay/waste/dirt –
think of crematoriums, ‘ashes to ashes dust to dust’, cigarette trays. But
it has positive connotations too – the phoenix rising from the ashes for
example. This can perhaps symbolise the redemptive nature of
humanity – the ability of men to pull through circumstances of great
hardship and suffering. The ash-grey men at work in this place
symbolise the downtrodden working class chained forever to industry
and monotony. They move ‘dimly and already crumbling through the
powdery air;. Living out a mere half-life, a million miles from the
splendour and indulgence of the Buchanans’ environment.
The Valley of Ashes – Lack of Colour and Definition in the Landscape
A line of grey cards crawls along an invisible track… immediately the
ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an
impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your
sight.
This perhaps represents the idea that this section of society is deliberate
hidden from view (notice how the train curls away from the Valley, as if
it ‘shrinks away’ from having to confront it.) In modern industrial society,
the polarisation between the haves and have-nots, between the
slaves and the masters, grows ever stronger. By repeating images of
greyness, obscuring cloud and blindness, Fitzgerald emphasises the
tendency of the privileged to casually ‘overlook’ the reality of hellholes
such as these.
The Eyes of Dr T.J. Eckleburg
…above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift
endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J.
Eckleberg…[his] eyes…are blue and gigantic – their retinas are one
yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of
enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a non-existent nose…his
eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days, under sun and rain,
brood on over the solemn dumping group.
The sign on the hill is ambiguous – Fitzgerald gives no overt explanation
of its relevance in the move – and yet it pervades the consciousness of
the reader as we pass through the Valley of Ashes into the life of the
Wilsons.
The Eyes of Dr T. J. Eckleburg
Reminds us – by its sheer size and the incongruity of its surroundings – of
the importance and influence of advertising in modern culture. These
eyes have no natural place on the hillside, and yet they dominate the
landscape, being its most prominent feature.
Fitzgerald has deliberately chosen an advert for optometry in order to
point out the modern man’s inability to see the corruption of our
society and environment. This lack of vision applies to all of the
characters in the book, each of all fail to ‘see’ the basic futility of their
hopes and dreams.
The billboard shows how consumerism and materialism has taken the
place of traditional spiritual values.
Myrtle and George Wilson
The only impoverished characters in the novel live in the Valley of the
Ashes. Notably their home is made of yellow brick. Again the
symbolism of colour is both complex and revealing.
Just like the yellow brick road in L Frank Baum's 1900 classic The Wizard
of Oz, the façade of the Wilsons’ home is a symbol of false promise in
the midst of despair. We know Myrtle has aspirations beyond the ash
heap – despite the impossibility of any permanent match between
them, she sees Tom Buchanan has her ticket to a lifelong party; by
contrast, George is one of the ash-grey men, and his only source of joy
is, ironically, the wife who is cheating on him:
A white ashen dust veiled his dark suit and his pale hair as it veiled
everything in his vicinity – except his wife, who moved close to Tom.
Myrtle Wilson
Myrtle represents the idea of escape in the novel, but like other
characters, her dream is false and filled with illusion. Both she and her
ghost-like husband are locked to the Valley of the Ashes by the very
nature of their impoverishment. Thus, the yellowness of their home
could also suggest decay and atrophy.
She initially displays a robust sexuality and the reader can see why Tom
is attracted to her – she is the opposite from the pure, delicate and
insubstantial Daisy.
Myrtle’s transformation emphasises her desire to be accepted into
Tom’s world. She believes in illusion and in looking the part, yet this
existence is a façade. The irony is she metamorphoses into her
interpretation of an East Egger but she becomes more grotesque – until
eventually she is little more than a ridiculous parody of herself.
Daisy and Myrtle
We are presented with a great contrast between Daisy and Myrtle.
Whereas Daisy is presented as faintly ephemeral. Dressed in pale
pastels with her ‘low, thrilling voice’, Myrtle is charged with sensual and
verbal energy. When she comes down the stairs, Nick notes her
‘immediate perceptible vitality… as if her nerves were continually
smouldering’.
Unlike Daisy, she wears bold, saturated colours to reveal her hotblooded temperament and her robust femininity. She is straight
forward, commanding and overtly sexual, licking her lips at Tom as she
approaches him. It is only when she changed her dress that her
character alters as Nick observes through a drunken surreal haze.
Myrtle
Mrs Wilson … was now attired in an elaborate afternoon dress of cream
coloured chiffon … with the influence of the dress, her personality had
also undergone a change. The intense vitality … was covered into
impressive hauteur. Her laughter, her gestures, her assertions become
more violently affected… and as she expanded the room grew smaller
around her, until she seemed to be revolving on a noisy, creaking pivot
through the smoky air.
Myrtle’s Transformation
The change of dress is symbolic of the nature of falsity and pretence
that pervades the whole novel. Her movement from her real self
(represented by the full-blooded blue of her previous dress) to her
‘desired’ self (seen in the pastel cream of a dress which might be worn
by Daisy) is indicative of her inability to face the truth about her life.
She is pretending to be the one person in the world who she cannot
hope to emulate – her lover's wife.
Artifice and Reality - Theme
The idea of falseness rings throughout this chapter. Find as many
examples of you can of this falseness and explain what they tell you
about the characters and Fitzgerald’s overall impression of this type of
society.
Lie told by Myrtle about the reason Tom cannot divorce Daisy.
The abundance of alcohol serves as a reminder of the characters
need to fill their leisure time with artificial stimulants.
Myrtle’s discussion of her own marriage reveals her own superficiality:
the fact that she was appalled by George borrowing a suit for the
ceremony really only tells us that she is the one who cannot see
beyond surface reality.
Her husband ‘dumbly’ adores her, but his status in society is the only
thing that matters in her materialistic, greedy world.
Reality
The characters are forced out of their drunken stupor and back to
harsh reality with the sound of Myrtle’s nose being broken by Tom. This
first sign of violence is an open admission of the aggressive behaviour
he has displayed throughout the novel so far. With one blow, he signals
the permanence of his marriage – the symbol, after all, of his wealth
and connection in society. The one thing in Tom's life that is ‘real’ is this
marriage bond. Despite his lack of fondness or love for Daisy, it is the
one unbreakable chain in his life. This is the harshness of the reality that
Myrtle - and, in time - Gatsby will have to face.
Dual Setting